Holiday hiring is up

Retailers added 465,500 jobs last month, the most ever for the holiday shopping season.

Seasonal hiring jumped 21 percent from a year ago, when retailers hired 383,700 workers, according to the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which analyzed data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Last month edged out the previous best November 2007, when 465,400 people were hired by retailers.

Numbers were bolstered by an early Black Friday.

“Despite all of the uncertainty, all the talk of fiscal cliffs, the widespread damage to retail epicenters on the East Coast by Hurricane Sandy, and the continued growth of e-commerce, retailers are hiring holiday workers in record numbers,” said John A. Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.